


Operation Knit

by Kyntha



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Gift Giving, Knitting, Korean War, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 03:08:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4649952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyntha/pseuds/Kyntha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawkeye discovers yarn and a way to keep himself busy.<br/>Pre-Hawkeye/Mulcahy if you squint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Operation Knit

“Radar, these boxes feel too light to be tongue depressors.” Hawkeye noted, helping the young infantryman to the supply tent with four large boxes marked “USA Army. Tongue Depressors.”

“All I know is, sir, ICorps says they sent us tongue depressors so these must be them.” Radar responded, internally frustrated because he knew he had a fifty fifty chance the boxes may very well not contain what they claimed to contain.

“Well I won’t believe these are marked correctly until I see what’s inside.” Hawkeye declared.

“Me neither, sir.” Radar grumbled. Frankly he just wished the officers would leave supplies alone. He had enough trouble with ICorps sending them breast pumps instead of combat boots and long underwear in the summer time.

Hawkeye set his boxes down in the supply tent with a thwump. “Let’s see what we have here today, shall we, Radar?” The company clerk’s heart sank, but he agreed as the doctor reached into his pocket for a knife and sliced open the first box. “Yarn!” he exclaimed, opening one box after another.. “All yarn!”

The surgeon was right. All yarn, and none of it very attractive. There were skeins of dull brown, the color of Class A’s; olive green, of course; a deep, dark red one might even describe as ‘blood red;’ and a few skeins of an off white and a pasty looking pale pink. “Needles too, sir, at the bottom of each box.” Sure enough each box held a set of knitting needles.

“I wonder how we ended up with this?” Hawkeye mused, curious enough he forgot to be sarcastic.

“I don’t know, sir. Maybe it was supposed to go to some USO unit instead. You know, so they could knit stuff for the guys on the front line. They don’t just sing and dance and stuff. That’s just the folks that go around with Bob Hope and them. Some of them do what they like to call ‘humanitarian aid’ whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“Do you know how to knit, Radar?”

“I’ve seen my mom do it lots, sir, but I’ve never done it. Me and Uncle Ed, we let the women do that kinda work.” But he could see the Captain’s wheels start turning. 

It didn’t surprise Radar to see Hawkeye and BJ later that day in the mess tent with a skein of yarn. Hawkeye was winding into a ball while BJ held it up looped over both hands so as not to let it tangle. “It’s one of the few memories I have left of my mom,” Hawkeye was saying, “helping her wind yarn. Made my arms sore for hours, but I still remember how to roll the balls so the yarn pulls from the center.”

“What are we going to do with all this yarn once you get it rewound, Hawk? Or are you just trying to trick me into doing some twisted immobile arm exercises?” BJ asked.

“Mmmm...I don’t know. Maybe we can knit Frank into his cot.”

“Knit covers for the chopper blades.”

“Make cozies for the tents.”

“Crochet seat covers for the latrine.”

“Darn new uniforms for the nurses with strategic holes in all the right places.”

At that moment, much to Radar’s relief, Father Mulcahy walked into the mess tent. “Hello, boys. Whatever are you up to today?” He asked hoping he didn’t regret the answer too much.

“Not sure yet, Father.” BJ answered. “Seems we ended up with four cases of tongue depressors that turned out to be USO yarn instead. Currently Hawk has been walking down memory lane and dragging us both through the proverbial gutter instead of coming up with any real plan.”

Hawkeye stuck his tongue out at BJ. “Anything to keep me sane, Father.” He smirked, flashing his blue eyes at the priest.

“Well, as long as you boys are staying out of trouble.”

“No one said anything about staying out of trouble, Father.” Hawkeye grinned mischievously. “Just staying sane.”

Father Mulcahy gave Hawkeye a reproving look, not completely failing to hid the amusement behind his eyes. “Well, I’m headed down to the orphanage to deliver medical supplies and vegetables from my garden. This warm weather has done wonders for my green beans and tomatoes.”

“That’s it!” Hawkeye said as Father Mulcahy drove off in a jeep. “Beej, do you know how to knit?”

BJ just glared at him. “Come on, Hawk. I’m from San Francisco. The closest thing I’ve come to knitting is buying Peg a lace shawl at one of those beatnik art shows two summers ago.”

“We need to find someone who knits.” Hawkeye jumped up from the table and headed in the direction of the nurses’ tent, leaving BJ sitting alone with yarn still wrapped around both his hands.

“Hawk! Hawk!” He shouted unsuccessfully through the screen.

Neither Able nor Baker knew how to knit, but Kellye did. “We used to knit scarves and hats to send to soldiers in the European campaign when I was a girl.” she said. “The wool was so hot during our summers in Honolulu, but mother said the winters were freezing in Europe and our scarves would keep the men and women warm. After Pearl Harbor, everyone in Hawaii wanted to do something to help.”

Hawkeye, having finally relieved BJ of the dull brown yarn, and Kellye were sitting together on an upturned packing crate heads nearly pressed together, Kellye guiding Hawkeye’s hands occasionally when Father Mulcahy drove up late that afternoon. “Afternoon, Hawkeye. Can I hope you’re staying out of trouble?” He eyed this new development and wondered what he was possibly dragging Nurse Kellye into.

“Look, Father! A hat!” Hawkeye proudly held up a knitting needle with several lumpy rows of uneven knitting. 

“Uhm...I...see.” the chaplain faltered.

“Well, it will be a hat eventually, Father. If Hawkeye can keep his fingers out of his own way.” Kellye laughed. “You’d think for a surgeon he’d be more nimble.”

Hawkeye wagged his eyebrows, “If you want nimble, I’ll show you nimble, Nurse.”

Kellye blushed at the sudden off color suggestion, not used to the attention he gave the other nurses. Father Mulcahy blushed slightly too. “Well, then, I guess I’ll, uhm, leave you to it.”

By the end of the week, even amid a 36 hour meatball surgery session, Hawkeye and Kellye had both knit a hat. By the end of the second week, BJ allowed himself to be pulled into their pet project and all three had knit hats. By the end of the third week, Kellye had convinced Margaret to pick up the hobby again. The four were now experimenting with making small stripes in the hats with the off white and dull pink yarns Somehow the lighter colors contrasting with the darker ones did manage to liven their hats up a bit. Eventually Radar remembered how his mother made pom poms out of scrap yarn and was busy darning the decoration on the tops of the others’ creations.

“Whatever are you going to do with all these hats, my son?” Father Mulcahy finally asked Hawkeye one evening at supper.

Hawkeye would only say “It’s a surprise, Father.” and wink at him.

By All Saints Day, as the weather was turning colder and Father Mulcahy’s corn stalks had dried and were rustling in the wind, Hawkeye placed the last hat in a large box marked ‘test tubes.’ There had been just enough of the pink left for BJ to make a small hat to send home to Erin for the holidays.

Hawkeye, BJ, Kellye, Margaret, and Radar crossed the compound to Father Mulcahy’s tent, each carrying a box. Radar knocked on the father’s door. “Come in.” Father Mulcahy called, bracing himself for the chill that would bluster in with his visitor.

“Father,” Hawkeye began as the five people crowded into the priest’s tent. “We would like to present you with your Christmas gift a few months early.”

“Well, really, it’s for you to give away, but we couldn’t think of a better thing to give you.” BJ continued.

“And we couldn’t think of anyone more deserving to give it to than you, Father.” Kellye added.

“Oh, just open a box!” Margaret exclaimed, impatient.

Father Mulcahy opened the lid on one of the boxes, somewhat cautiously. “Hats? Your hats? My goodness, how many are here?”

“For the orphans, Father!” Radar practically shouted.

“For the orphans?” the chaplain repeated.

“All sizes. Some for the bigger children and some for the little ones. BJ even got real good at making them for the babies.” Radar continued.

Father Mulcahy couldn’t help but wipe a small tear from his eye. “Is this what you all have been scheming all summer?”

Hawkeye nodded. “Ever since the day you drove off with your beans and tomatoes. I, we, figured if the Army was going to send us yarn, we should put it to good use. I know you’d been trying to find warm clothes for the orphans so we hope this is a good start.”

Father Mulcahy hugged all five hat makers in turn, pausing to hug Hawkeye just a bit longer perhaps than the others. "Thank you so much, Hawkeye." He mumbled into the doctor's shoulder. 

"Merry Christmas, Francis." Hawkeye whispered back.

They all declined going with Father Mulcahy to the orphanage. They had earned their pleasure in giving away the hats. Now it was the father’s turn to see the joy on the orphans’ faces. He was still misty-eyed at the generosity of his camp mates as he drove off down the road.

*****

“Captain Pierce, sir, would you help me with these boxes, if it’s not too much trouble?” Radar called to Hawkeye one January afternoon. They’d gotten a short reprieve in the bitter, winter weather.

“What’d we get, Radar?” Hawkeye asked on the way to the supply tent.

“Swim trunks, sir.”

“These boxes feel too heavy to be swim trunks.” Hawkeye insisted on opening a box. “Tongue depressors? What are we going to do with ten thousand tongue depressors?”

Radar shook his head and walked back to the camp office, wondering where this new venture was going to lead.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't actually know if creating scarves and hats and other things for soldiers was something the USO would have done in World War II or the Korean War. I didn't do any research on it, but it seemed to make sense in my head, so I ran with hit. No offense or misrepresentation is intended.


End file.
